hunger... life...

André "Dédé" Fortin 1962-2000 On the 8th of May 2000, the Montreal music scene lost one of it's poets. André "Dédé" Fortin was the singer of the band "Les Colocs" (which is a term you hear a lot in and around Montreal, it means a roomate or flatmate for the Brits) and he left no one indifferent when he performed. His songs were extremely personal and often times, transparently autobiographical. When you listened, you felt like you were getting to know him. His death was a great loss to his fans, because we truly felt we had lost a friend we knew well. He directed this video for "La Rue Principale" (Main Street) released in 1993. He named the street in the song after the main drag in his hometown of Saint-Thomas-Didyme, la rue Saint-Cyrille. He had a boyish charm, a Peter Pan quality to him. This song is entitled... "Dédé" But there lurked a dark shadow near him, a silent menace. “I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” - Richard Wright He performed this song at a festival in July 1999, about 10 months before taking his own life. I wish I could do it justice by translating the words, his story, for you... If you only watch one of the videos, let it be this one.. and please watch. Don't read ahead. "Le répondeur" (The Answering Machine) "j'te dis qu'à soir dans mon p'tit coeur, y fait frette" which can be summed up as: Tonight, in my little heart... it's frickin cold. "Frette" in colloquial or joual French refers to the kind of cold that stings your cheeks, makes your eyes squint and water and freezes any tears that form right at your eyelashes... frickin cold. The cold you imagine resides down in the deepest midnight blue waters of a lake. Where light never shines and life is a struggle. I realized watching it over and over, that you really need not understand what words he's singing... all you need is the melody and to watch his eyes, his expression, to hear the tone of his voice. That smile at the end kills me... So many of us wish we could have wrapped him up in a safe warm woobie and given him a reason to smile, to love, to live, to sing to us, to be. To have given him the hunger for life. Dédé suffered from Depression. I know what that feels like... I experienced it after having The Chicklet. But she was my lifeline, my woobie, my light... and she kept me from going to that dark place where you let the cold numb you into a deep and permanent slumber. The slumber which provides relief from the sharp needles that stop shy of drawing blood but are relentless and ever present. I've ended so many of my previous posts by "pushing" FreeRice and asking you to help, to do your part to feed those who have next to nothing. You know, it amazes me that people who have so little to look forward to, who struggle to just make it through another day, who feel a hunger that is so real, fight so hard to stay alive. To wake up and see another day. Dédé didn't have any fight left. And we lost. I hope it's warm where he is now, that his heart isn't cold anymore. Please, to calm the hunger of the poor... play the game. And if you have some change to spare or some time to give, donate to your local suicide helpline or a suicide prevention foundation and help give someone like Dédé the hunger for another day. If you stumble upon this post and you've lost that hunger, please remember: “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” - Charles Austin Beard Dédé, je t'aime tout court. Tu me manques. Love you all more than my luggage! Hugs, smooches and gropes!